Jennifer Crusie - Maybe This Time

Alice was quiet for a moment and then she nodded. Andie held out her hand and Alice took it, and they walked down the wide stone staircase for what Andie sincerely hoped was the last time ever.

“Columbus will be better,” she told Alice quietly, not sure why she was keeping her voice low.

“Will there be butterflies?” Alice said.

“Yes,” Andie said. “In the spring, there’ll be butterflies, just like here. And a butterfly garden, just like here.” Except for the salvia.

Alice nodded.

When they went out the back door, Lydia was putting on her gloves by the driver’s side door. “Carter’s going to ride with North in the van,” she said to Andie.

“Okay,” Andie said and opened the door to her Mustang. “Alice, are you ready to go?”

Alice looked around again, as if she were listening for something, and then Carter got out of the van and came toward her. She lifted up her face as he came up to her. “It’s okay. Get in the car.”

Don’t back out now, baby, Andie prayed, and Alice crawled into the front seat.

“What’s wrong?” she said to Alice, and the little girl looked at her for a long minute and then shook her head.

“You’re okay with us all leaving here,” Andie said.

Alice nodded.

“Then let’s go.”

Andie waved to North who waved back and got in the driver’s seat of the van. Carter went around to the other side of the van and Andie heard the door slam. Southie came out of the house with a last box, put it in the back of the van, slammed the doors and then smacked the side, and North began to pull out onto the bridge.

There’s something wrong, Andie thought. The kids were too quiet. Everything was too quiet. She looked around but there was nothing, no Miss J, no Peter, no May. They were gone. They really were.

“I don’t get it,” she said, and Southie heard her and came over.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something,” she said. “But I don’t know what.”

“Is it something you can deal with in Columbus?” Southie said, genial as ever.

“If it isn’t, we’ll find out when we try to leave.”

“Then let’s leave and find out.”

North had slowed the van just before it went into the trees, and Carter leaned out and yelled, “Come on !”

“Follow me out,” Southie told his mother, and Andie got in the car with Alice, made sure her seat belt was on, and belted herself in. Through the window she saw Southie get in North’s car and start up the drive toward the van, and then Flo got in her car and followed, and Lydia followed behind her. Andie said, “You ready to go, Alice?” and Alice said, “Yes,” and Andie started the car, and thought, We’re not going to get out of here. Something will stop us.

The line of cars wound down through the trees and then up to the road, each one gunning its motor to make it up the insane incline, and then Andie gunned the motor and the Mustang shot forward and they were actually out of the drive. She braced herself for what was to come, some supernatural gatekeeper swooping down to snatch Alice away from her, but the only things that swooped were the crows in the trees, circling and cawing at them as they drone away.

She looked over at the little girl. Alice had pulled her comforter over her, up to her chin, and was looking quiet and tense, only her pale little face showing above the blue chiffon.

“I was afraid we wouldn’t get out,” she told Alice.

“It’s okay,” Alice said. “We can go to Columbus.”

“You’ll like it,” Andie told her. “They painted your bedroom blue.”

Alice nodded, and Andie looked in her rearview mirror.

There was nothing back there, just an empty stretch of road.

Did I imagine all of that? she thought, and kept an eye on the rearview until she turned onto the main highway and the idea of ghosts coming after them seemed ridiculous.

So it’s over, Andie thought and leaned back, trying to get all the foreboding out of her brain.

“It’ll be okay,” Alice said from beside her.

She knows something, Andie thought. That’s why she keeps saying that. “How do you know?”

“I just know,” Alice said and closed her eyes and went to sleep.

By the time Andie pulled up in front of the Victorian, North and Carter were already carrying in the couch with its bolsters, past shrieking kids in their Halloween costumes.

“It’s Halloween,” Andie said to Alice as she helped her with her seat belt. “Next year, we’ll dress up, too. And see? Dennis is even here. Carter’s helping to carry the couch in.”

Alice nodded and slipped out of her seat, still clutching Rose Bunny.

“I’ll get your comforter,” Andie called to her, and Alice nodded and walked toward the house.

Andie got out and met Lydia on the walk.

“Is she all right?” Lydia said, watching Alice’s straight, sturdy little back. “She seems quiet.”

“It might just be the change,” Andie said, watching Alice go up the steps to the porch. “Kids aren’t good with change. I don’t know.”

“Well, she’s safe now,” Lydia said briskly, and went toward the house.

Flo went past carrying a box for Carter and said, in passing, “I still think there’s an Emperor in this somewhere.”

“I’m sure there is,” Andie said, and then Southie said, “How’s Alice?”, and Andie turned and saw him carrying Carter’s box of art supplies toward her.

“Very quiet,” Andie said.

Southie shook his head. “That’s not our Alice. North said Carter was quiet, too, but he’s always quiet.”

“Maybe not this quiet,” Andie said, and followed him into the house.

She found Alice standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking around.

“You okay, honey?” she said.

“I like this wallpaper,” Alice said solemnly.

Since the wallpaper was a faded red Victorian nightmare of a pattern, Andie said, “Oh, good. Your room is upstairs.”

Alice went up the first two treads and then stopped to look into the reception room.

Andie craned her neck to look, too. They must have moved the old couch out because Dennis’s green striped settee was in its place, its bolsters snugged against its arms.

“Good night, Dennis,” Alice called.

Good night, Alice. Welcome to Columbus.

Alice nodded and went up the stairs, and Andie followed.

“Here’s your room,” Lydia said, opening a door, and Alice stopped on the threshold.

Andie looked past her to see pale blue walls and ceiling painted with clouds, and a white four-poster bed draped in a blue-sequined chiffon canopy.

“Do you like it?” Lydia said, and Andie thought she was actually anxious about it.

“It’s bee-you-tee-ful,” Alice said, sincerity in every syllable, and then she crossed the room and sat down on the bed and bounced a little. “I love it.”

Lydia smiled, and Andie walked across the hall to the other open door.

Carter sat on a solid wood bed, his striped comforter already thrown across it, but he was staring at the wall on the other side of the door, so Andie stepped in to see what he was looking at.

A huge drawing table with an adjustable lamp was in the center of the wall, flanked by floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with art supplies and books.

“North had a local art store do it,” Lydia said from behind her. “I thought it was overdone, but evidently not.”

“You okay, Carter?” Andie said.

He looked at her, his face drawn. “It’s great.”

“What’s wrong?” she said, and he shook his head.

“This is really great,” he said, and he sounded sincere.

“Give him some time to settle in,” Lydia said.